The Oregon school board recently approved a $53.8 million budget for the next fiscal year. The general fund represented the largest share, at $40.7 million, consisting of about 76 percent of the total, according to Treasurer Jane Fruth.

The general fund is projected to increase by 2 percent.

The bond fund, which is the debt for buildings, and the Permanent Improvement fund, generated from a levy passed last year for building improvements, were also a large part of the budget, she said. The bond fund represents $3 million in the budget, and the PI fund is $3.4 million.

“It matters not how strait the gate. How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.”

Melissa Coduti likes to recite those lines, the last paragraph in the poem Invictus, by William Ernest Henley.

Coduti, a 2000 Northwood graduate, is 32 years old now and lives in the Chicago suburb of Springfield, Ill. She joined the United States Air Force in June 2002 – her brothers Jacob Falk, 31, and Louis Coduti, 33, are also Air Force veterans - and she knew then that she wanted to be a military “lifer.”

A senior advisory committee has recommended a budget for Oregon senior services that will be funded by revenue from a new 0.5-mill senior levy passed by residents last November.

Voters approved the five year levy to expand senior services. The city will collect $210,000 each year in revenue from the levy.

Members of the committee have been meeting every couple of weeks since April to discuss the best options for distributing the levy funds. The city has already collected $98,000 in senior levy revenue this year.

“We came up with a group of services we can live with, but we want to get public input,” said Councilman Terry Reeves, who also chairs the Parks & Recreation Committee and is a member of the senior advisory committee.

Oregon council approved a contract with Poggemeyer Design Group, Inc., Bowling Green, for $2.9 million for the design and construction of a geothermal energy improvement project at the municipal complex.

“I think it’s time we move forward,” said Administrator Mike Beazley at a council meeting on Monday. “We feel that we’ve looked at this for a long time, and ultimately, it will allow us to maintain this building in a responsible way and lower operation costs long term.”

Council last December approved special assessments to fund geothermal energy in the complex on Seaman Road that is expected to reduce energy costs.